Putting the 'role' back in role-playing games since 2002.
Donate to Codex
Good Old Games
  • Welcome to rpgcodex.net, a site dedicated to discussing computer based role-playing games in a free and open fashion. We're less strict than other forums, but please refer to the rules.

    "This message is awaiting moderator approval": All new users must pass through our moderation queue before they will be able to post normally. Until your account has "passed" your posts will only be visible to yourself (and moderators) until they are approved. Give us a week to get around to approving / deleting / ignoring your mundane opinion on crap before hassling us about it. Once you have passed the moderation period (think of it as a test), you will be able to post normally, just like all the other retards.

Review Game of Thrones RPG Review at RockPaperShotgun

Crooked Bee

(no longer) a wide-wandering bee
Patron
Joined
Jan 27, 2010
Messages
15,048
Location
In quarantine
Codex 2013 Codex 2014 PC RPG Website of the Year, 2015 Codex 2016 - The Age of Grimoire MCA Serpent in the Staglands Dead State Divinity: Original Sin Project: Eternity Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire
Tags: Cyanide; Game of Thrones

RockPaperShotgun has done a review of Cyanide's Game of Thrones RPG, and whaddya know, it's a positive one! Here are some of the more important bits:

It’s made from two key ingredients: a fleshed-out and surprising narrative that weaves in and out of the events of the first Song of Ice & Fire book/season of the TV show without either disrupting them or being undermined by them, and combat that blossoms from stilted beginnings into highly tactical crowd control. Also, stealth missions starring a psychic dog. It’s grand and sprawling and silly and brutal and will make about as much sense as a sheep wearing a tie to anyone not reasonably au fait with the books or TV show, and it’s a hard sell for sure. It might also be the most fascinating mainstream game I’ve played this year.

[...] This being Game of Thrones – and not just lip service to it – everything is connected, everyone is lying to everyone and no-one is safe from blade. Least of all the most virtuous. Given how much existent material it has to tie into yet never step on the toes of, the writing does a remarkable job of being its own, self-contained and surprisingly affecting tale while still finding some natural gaps to slide neatly into. There are certainly points where it’s near-impossible to believe that Mors and Alester’s activities, and the nature of some of their allies, could have gone entirely unobserved and unremarked upon by the books/show, but for the most part it avoids being fanfic or grotty embellishment. Its Mors and Alester’s story. There’s plenty I could spoil, but I’ll leave it at saying they’re not operating in the vacuum they first appear to be. That’s good, in that it’s satisfying to be part of the bigger picture after all, and bad in that the game will struggle to function as standalone entity for those who don’t know the show/books well. Mors and Alester might not be in Game of Thrones, but they are very much in the game of thrones. As such, you know full well what their options are.

Critically, their tale, as it blossoms and unravels and shocks and elongates far past what I’d imagined, is compelling. That it achieves this without any Tyrion or Joffrey or Ned or Hodor (Hodor!) deserves great applause. That it achieves this despite being often undermined by voice acting your mum could do a better job of deserves a standing ovation.

[...] Your two characters’ abilities complement each other, primarily by creating stunlock or damage over time effects which their companion’s skills can make the best of, but the enemy numbers and toughness generally increases to ensure that you can’t focus on just one of your guys while leaving the other to do whatever.

True enough, the combat can be samey despite this. There isn’t an enormous range of abilities even if there are options, you’re almost exclusively up against identikit guards in light, medium or heavy armour and with either melee or ranged weapons, plus the energy bar is too limited to allow using your full box of tricks in any given single fight. But it is truly tactical and thoughtfully balanced, and for that reason it’s spared from the hollow relentlessness it might have had as a straight-up action game even in stretches where the fighting can become too routine.

[...] In short, it’s a troubled roleplaying game but also a really interesting and strong one. Every misfire is met by a triumph of some sort, and the one thing it is not is a lazy, perfunctory cash-in. It’s an epic that doesn’t quite have the budget to be an epic, but strives its hardest to be one nonetheless. It’s much more like the kind of experience I’d hoped for from Risen 2, which sadly turned out to be a stereotype-laden exercise in hollow jolliness. This is thoughtful, heavy with a sense of consequence and impressively nasty even despite stylistic and apparent budgetary failings. After the woeful Genesis, it’s also Cyanide very much making good on the huge license they lucked into.​

If that has piqued your interest, you can read the full review here.
 

Morkar Left

Guest
His writing is somehow awful to read. I still know nothing about the game... Is it save to assume that the game is DA in the Game of Thrones setting?


EDIT: Just learned that aweful isn't a word and what I was looking for is awful. Awful it is...
 

mikaelis

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 28, 2008
Messages
1,436
Location
Land of Danes
Codex 2013 Codex 2014
His writing is somehow aweful to read. I still know nothing about the game... Is it save to assume that the game is DA in the Game of Thrones setting?

Yes, except it is 3x better and more interesting than DA and 30x better than DA2
 

Morkar Left

Guest
His writing is somehow aweful to read. I still know nothing about the game... Is it save to assume that the game is DA in the Game of Thrones setting?

Yes, except it is 3x better and more interesting than DA and 30x better than DA2

Thanks.
How linear is it? And what about the combat and stat system?
 

mikaelis

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 28, 2008
Messages
1,436
Location
Land of Danes
Codex 2013 Codex 2014
It is linear (basically story-driven game) though you will have some decision points that will ease/complicate the further progression. Combat is RTwP. You can select different abilities that you unlock by gaining XP and distributing points. Basically you can choose three different "classes" for each hero (Mors and Alester). There you will have a standard skill tree, which can evolve to advanced tree at level 7 or 8 (don't remember atm). Instead of advanced tree you can choose additional basic class that you haven't chosen in the beginning of the game. On top of that, each hero has unique skill tree (Mors - skinchanger, Alester - Rholl's fire abilities). Skinchanger ability involves Mors's dog which can become more and more advanced help in fighting and sneaking.
Good thing is, you will not have a deja vu from DA series trashing through the hordes of stupid mobs (or parachuters). There is plenty of combat, but less than in DA and definitely the placement of your opponents is much more sensible and well thought - so you don't feel like going through the endless waves of puppets.

Story is great and the ending is fucking pure gold (a'la Martin's best trolling).
 

hiver

Guest
really...the story is great in it? and ending is fucking gold too?
Wish i had the mental stamina to go through that myself... any spoilers anywhere?
 

mikaelis

Prophet
Patron
Joined
Nov 28, 2008
Messages
1,436
Location
Land of Danes
Codex 2013 Codex 2014
really...the story is great in it? and ending is fucking gold too?
Wish i had the mental stamina to go through that myself... any spoilers anywhere?

I may have exaggatated a bit, but it is definitely way above recent games.
 

hiver

Guest
I just saw Mors running around doing quests and talking to NPCs with two human heads hanging from his belt.
 

TwinkieGorilla

does a good job.
Patron
Joined
Oct 19, 2007
Messages
5,480
Serpent in the Staglands Divinity: Original Sin Torment: Tides of Numenera Wasteland 2 Shadorwun: Hong Kong Divinity: Original Sin 2 BattleTech Pathfinder: Wrath
Y'all are late to the party. We been singin' in RPG General for weeks. Also: hiver, please report to Bath Salts thread.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,934
I just saw Mors running around doing quests and talking to NPCs with two human heads hanging from his belt.

Yeah that is just a wildling boss character's armor id est nothing to get excited over.
 

hiver

Guest
right, riiight... those wildings eh? i wander what else is there not to get excited about.
 

hiver

Guest
right, riiight... those wildings eh? i wander what else is there not to get excited about.
 

Modron

Arcane
Joined
May 5, 2012
Messages
9,934
right, riiight... those wildings eh? i wander what else is there not to get excited about.
I just meant that it is a cosmetic item nothing of consequence; the game is very enjoyable with a fairly good story full of backstabs not the shit that many review sites are saying it is in order to maintain their street cred and jump on the bandwagon at the same time.
 

hiver

Guest
Cosmetic that stinks like hell, rots, attracts flies, worms, larvae, bacteria, wild beasts and several different diseases and weighs several kilos all together.
Not to mention people would run away screaming, call guards that would arrests you or kill you, or just think youre entirely retarded if they saw you with that shit.

But as long as its a cosmetic....

/

Anyone reacts to a character being a Warg? Thats not the most approved feature in the setting, you know?
Or am i asking too much again?

/

Cant say anything about "good story" or backstabs and whatever, until ive seen it myself.
 

Untermensch

Augur
Joined
Apr 16, 2012
Messages
280
Location
Croatia
really...the story is great in it? and ending is fucking gold too?
Wish i had the mental stamina to go through that myself... any spoilers anywhere?

I may have exaggatated a bit, but it is definitely way above recent games.

:?

I'm a bit surprised. Usually movie/tv/comic tie-ins are beyond awful.
Might be worth a look then.
I don't even know anything about the game, besides the "it's an Rpg", and even that label was given by the industry.
 

Morgan Ramsay

Educated
Joined
May 10, 2012
Messages
4
Location
San Diego, CA
Is it safe to assume that the game is DA in the Game of Thrones setting?
The Game of Thrones RPG is seriously underrated, primarily because of the "graphics" which could mean anything.
  • The models and animations are of a Half-Life 2/Vampire quality and the textures are of a quality between Oblivion and Skyrim without the high-resolution texture packs.
  • Most of the voices are far more incredible and varied than nearly every other RPG that I've ever played. For some reason, reviewers and many players think otherwise. In the end, I suppose whether you like the voices is a matter of taste.
  • The branching dialogue approaches the complexity of Alpha Protocol, where your decisions are actually meaningful. Or, at least, they feel like they are meaningful, which is still hard to achieve for many RPGs.
  • There's a lot of combat, but there's plenty more dialogue. In fact, sometimes there's too much dialogue -- too much exposition -- and you end up thinking, "Does everyone have to give the best speech of their lives regardless of the situation? Yes, yes, they do." But you can turn on subtitles and move things along.
  • The story is exciting albeit told in a strange way. Each chapter alternates between the two protagonists, and you don't get a sense of how they're connected until later, so this can feel disjointed and out of place initially.
  • The cutscene direction, however, is absolutely terrible. Most of the time, the camera will show your character speaking at an angle, and depending on your equipment, you will just barely see your character's face.
  • Speaking of animations, there's very little variety in terms of the cutscenes. It's certainly not very "animated." Then again, in other games, the protagonists usually just cross their arms (Mass Effect).
  • I also think there's only one special finisher animation per weapon type, but luckily, this doesn't occur often, so when it does, it's awesome.
  • That said, like most games, the facial animations are similar to a Nutcracker's jaw movements, so close your eyes and listen, or turn on subtitles and skip the scenes when you've had enough.
  • The user interface is inconvenient. For example, if you open the Codex, you can't then open your Character Sheet. You have to close the Codex with the Codex key, and then open the Character Sheet. You also can't name your saves. There are plenty of these seemingly minor annoyances that quickly add up.
  • You also can't customize your key bindings from within the game. You have to modify the appropriate INI file. But you can play with a controller, if you want, and the game will take notice of that.
  • The save system is particularly troublesome because the game effectively pauses when you quick save. And get this: after you load a save, the game autosaves.
  • The Game of Thrones RPG, including the gameplay and combat, ultimately feels like a blend of Neverwinter Nights and Dragon Age: Origins. That's pretty great company, in my opinion.
I'm a bit surprised. Usually movie/tv/comic tie-ins are beyond awful.
Well, the Game of Thrones RPG isn't really a tie-in with the TV series. Cyanide was independently developing Game of Thrones while HBO was independently developing the TV series, but HBO didn't get involved with the game until much later in development, likely for marketing and licensing reasons. George R.R. Martin has also given his blessing to the unique story of the game that ties in with the Game of Thrones universe, but he has declared that only his works are canon.
 

CWagner

Augur
Joined
May 17, 2012
Messages
111
Location
Germany
Horrible gameplay in my opinion. DA:O was far better. Comparisons with DA2 useless, I don't think there has been a game trying to be a RPG worse than DA2. Fighting was approaching a D3 level of boredom before I quit it.

The interface makes skyrim look as if it was made for PCs instead of consoles.

Heard before the story is supposed to be great but as I don't have a console to play it on (nor do I want one or a controller for my PC) I don't want to suffer through it just to get the story.
 

As an Amazon Associate, rpgcodex.net earns from qualifying purchases.
Back
Top Bottom